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The 36th Santa Barbara International Film Festival will go on in a new way like never before…

“It’s imperative we bring a sense of hopefulness to 2021, but in the safest way possible,” says Roger Durling, SBIFF’s Executive Director. “A virtual component was a given but experiencing movies in socially distanced cars and being by the ocean felt oh so perfectly Santa Barbara, California.”

SBIFF are excited to announce that we are planning an elaborate build-out of two beachside drive-in theatres for the 36th Santa Barbara International Film Festival presented by UGG®, occurring March 31 – April 10, 2021. The drive-in theatres will be presented by Toyota Mirai and be hosted at Santa Barbara City College. They will include 80+ film screenings, all offered for FREE. RSVPing prior to arriving will be required.

Passes for the 2021 Festival are now on sale, as are tickets for the celebrity tributes. Visit sbiff.org/tickets to purchase

We also unveiled our poster for the 36th Edition. Barbara Boros has designed the SBIFF poster each year for 18 years, this year highlighting Santa Barbara’s Alice Keck Park.

In addition to the drive-ins, SBIFF will offer a full-scale, ticketed virtual component, which will include online film screenings, filmmaker Q&As, industry panels and celebrity tributes. To date, we have announced tribute honorees including Bill Murray, Sacha Baron Cohen, Amanda Seyfried, Riz Ahmed, Maria Bakalova, Kingsley Ben-Adir, Andra Day, Sidney Flanigan, Vanessa Kirby, Tahar Rahim, Zendaya, and Delroy Lindo. The tributes and industry panels will be aired live, over the festival’s virtual platform.

SBIFF programmers—who received a record number of film submissions this year—have assembled an impressive and diverse line-up that includes over 100 films, many of them World and US premieres. The film lineup and schedule will be announced in early March.

“We have poured all of our creativity into this plan and are very proud of the shape it is taking. SBIFF 2021 will be completely unique and marked by the excellence SBIFF is known for.”